The future of another Star Wars game hangs in the balance as insiders claim that downloadable game Star Wars: First Assault and the long-awaited Battlefront III may both be cancelled.

First Assault has never officially been announced but a trademark was spotted back in August last year, when it was imagined to have some connection to the seminal Rebel Assault. A later leak of artwork on Xbox.com though suggested some kind of ground-based shooter.

According to insiders speaking to website Kotaku it is in fact intended as a simplified prelude to the eternally delayed Battlefield III. Or at least it was.

According to Kotaku’s sources First Assault is a 16-player downloadable multiplayer shooter, where two teams of stormtroopers and rebels fight it out in familiar classic trilogy locales such as Cloud City and Tatooine.

The idea is that if the game sells well it becomes ‘step zero’ to Battlefront III. Quite why such an anticipated game needs a first step we’re not sure. But it could have something to do with the original being canned despite being almost finished, and then a number of lesser developers trying and failing to create an alternative from scratch.

First Assault is apparently entirely infantry based (with no Jedi) but the team already has spacecraft and vehicles up and running in a prototype of Battlefront III. You can certainly see AT-ST and AT-AT walkers in the screen below.

The problem is though that, like the much bigger budget Star Wars 1313, First Assault may simply be canned by new owners Disney, because it doesn’t fit in with their plans for Star Wars or LucasArts. The problem doesn’t seem to be so much that Disney doesn’t like console games (although they don’t) but that both games were designed before the planned new movies.

In fact it’s not just games: this week Disney has also confirmed that the Clone Wars CGI series has been cancelled and so too (mercifully) has comedy CGI series Star Wars Detours.

Work on First Assault is apparently still ongoing but Disney has frozen both hiring and new game announcements at LucasArts.

‘Fans should tell Disney/Lucas loud and clear they don’t want shitty titles from random developers; they want games to be taken seriously, and they will only pay for quality,’ says Kotaku’s source.

‘I believe that if Disney/Lucas lets LucasArts die, it means the death of Star Wars as a storied game franchise is right behind it.’